Any form of AI research is considered illegal by the council. They were basically saying to the quarians "you made your bed now you lay in it"

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The reason why AI research was so illegal was because of how large a threat they believed it posed to the galactic community. Once the Quarians goofed and the toasters revolted, what should have happened was a massive call to arms before they spread or became more advanced.

True. But it didn't work out like that. The geth fucked off beyond the Purseus Veil and didn't appear till 2183. The Quarians wasn't a council race so basically they just said "your problem and fuck you".

Because Quarians built self-replicating, merciless war machines and the Council would have gained absolutely nothing by intervening. They weren't a threat to the galaxy like the Rachni or the Krogan.

The wiki says the Council sent a small fleet to the edge of the Veil, expecting an attack, but no matter how long they waited, no attack came. I don't remember hearing that in-game, but it's been a long time since I've been through the Codex. So the Council banned the Quarians from having an embassy on the Citadel, and made them sign a treaty to never antagonize the Geth.

EDIT: Hijacking your thread for a minute. Played ME1 recently, almost done with ME2 now. In ME1, Tali stresses that each individual Geth platform maintains its own identity and that there's no shared consciousness. Being networked just allows them each, at an individual level, to become more intelligent.

ME2, Legion repeatedly bludgeons you over the head with the fact that there are no individual Geth, and that there is only "we". He has no individual identity and that he had to be specially made to have both more on-board programs, and the ability to connect to the Consensus no matter where he is.

The thing is, they didn't know they weren't a threat, nor did they have any idea of their intentions. If AI is considered the number one threat to the galaxy, how is a hands-off approach the best way of handling the situation when it's still in its early stages?

The Geth spent centuries replicating themselves in order to reach the size and strength they had by the time Shepard's spotlight came around. Before that, they were just miners and fieldhands with guns and stolen spacecraft. Why not cut them down then and still banish the Quarians from Citadel space?

My guess is it went down to a vote with the Council. Turians probably said. Let's go to war. Asari & Salarians having been through 2 galactic wars with Rachni & Krogan probably said that as long as the Geth stay in their own space & leave us alone it's probably best we leave them be. It seems they only want to hurt Quarians, so if we leave them be we can avoid a war that would cause countless casualties. At least that's my thoughts on it from playing the game & seeing how the Council's logic is presented in game.

The thing is, they didn't know they weren't a threat, nor did they have any idea of their intentions. If AI is considered the number one threat to the galaxy, how is a hands-off approach the best way of handling the situation when it's still in its early stages?

The Geth spent centuries replicating themselves in order to reach the size and strength they had by the time Shepard's spotlight came around. Before that, they were just miners and fieldhands with guns and stolen spacecraft. Why not cut them down then and still banish the Quarians from Citadel space?

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Sure, miners and fieldhands that managed to slaughter Quarians by the literal millions and drive them off their planet out of fear of extinction. Why would the Council try to wipe them out when they only ever showed signs of aggression to Quarians and stayed behind the Perseus Veil? Not only had they proven themselves capable of winning a full-blown war with an advanced species, they could have easily wiped that species out and chose not to. If the entire Quarian people couldn't stop them, why would the Council send presumably millions of people to die? Keep in mind that the Quarians didn't even come clean about it to the Council until they were already exiled.

Also keep in mind that it wasn't just Rannoch. The Geth took over every Quarian colony as well. They killed billions of Quarians. I'd imagine that nobody would want to go to war with the Geth after that, if it could be avoided. Especially considering the common opinions on the Rachni Wars and Krogan Rebellions.

Sure, miners and fieldhands that managed to slaughter Quarians by the literal millions and drive them off their planet out of fear of extinction. Why would the Council try to wipe them out when they only ever showed signs of aggression to Quarians and stayed behind the Perseus Veil? Not only had they proven themselves capable of winning a full-blown war with an advanced species, they could have easily wiped that species out and chose not to. If the entire Quarian people couldn't stop them, why would the Council send presumably millions of people to die? Keep in mind that the Quarians didn't even come clean about it to the Council until they were already exiled.

Also keep in mind that it wasn't just Rannoch. The Geth took over every Quarian colony as well. They killed billions of Quarians. I'd imagine that nobody would want to go to war with the Geth after that, if it could be avoided. Especially considering the common opinions on the Rachni Wars and Krogan Rebellions.

Krogan vs. Geth war. I'd pay to see that.

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The Geth proved themselves capable of winning a war against a divided people that vastly underestimated their capabilities. The Geth would not have the numbers nor the necessary munitions to stand against the combined naval forces of the council races. The Geth weren't chucking out dreadnoughts, nor were they the hulking, rocket launcher equipped death machines that we know them as during the reaper wars. There's no conceivable way that the Geth were capable of fighting against the might off all three council races, considering the fact that the Treaty of Farixen (5:3:1 ratio) would leave them immediately outgunned.

If an advanced artificial intelligence was such a serious threat, to the point where it was not just heavily regulated but entirely illegal and serious enough to the point at which they would allow an entire species to be wiped out because of it, what good reason is there for them to not respond by wiping them out before they pose a threat to all organic life? Leaving them alone and hoping they remain peaceful for the rest of eternity just sounds foolish, considering the widespread fear of what such beings could accomplish if left to their own devices.

You've got to also take into account that this is a council who has made a ton of bone headed decisions over the centuries. So leaving a race of deadly Robots alive on the edge of space isn't that shocking. They probably thought if they were mean to the Quarians & didn't let them settle on a planet that the Geth would be okay with them, because hey, they don't like the Quarians either.

The thing is, they didn't know they weren't a threat, nor did they have any idea of their intentions. If AI is considered the number one threat to the galaxy, how is a hands-off approach the best way of handling the situation when it's still in its early stages?

The Geth spent centuries replicating themselves in order to reach the size and strength they had by the time Shepard's spotlight came around. Before that, they were just miners and fieldhands with guns and stolen spacecraft. Why not cut them down then and still banish the Quarians from Citadel space?

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I would make the argument that the Geth from the Morning War were a whole lot more powerful than the Heretics from the events of ME1 and 2. Just because they repeatedly tell you that there are a lot more true Geth than there are Heretics.

I don't think it would have been as simple and easy as you're making it out to be for the Council races to just go and mop up. Again, we're talking about a race of synthetics that killed billions of Quarians. I also think you're exaggerating AI being the "number one threat the galaxy". I believe it boils down to what the Council would have gotten out of it. Millions of dead soldiers and gratitude from the Quarians, and nothing else. If the Geth had tried to expand, they probably would have slapped them down pretty hard because at that point it would have been an actual threat. But they didn't, so they left them alone,

I would make the argument that the Geth from the Morning War were a whole lot more powerful than the Heretics from the events of ME1 and 2. Just because they repeatedly tell you that there are a lot more true Geth than there are Heretics.

I don't think it would have been as simple and easy as you're making it out to be for the Council races to just go and mop up. Again, we're talking about a race of synthetics that killed billions of Quarians. I also think you're exaggerating AI being the "number one threat the galaxy". I believe it boils down to what the Council would have gotten out of it. Millions of dead soldiers and gratitude from the Quarians, and nothing else. If the Geth had tried to expand, they probably would have slapped them down pretty hard because at that point it would have been an actual threat. But they didn't, so they left them alone,

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They tell you that there are more true Geth than Heretics centuries later after they've had time to produce more of themselves and, no, the creation of AI is and always has been the number one threat in the series. From the Sovereign reveal all the way up to ghost kid in the top of the citadel, it was clear that conflict with a synthetic race that wanted to destroy organics was the most feared possibility that the council had contrived so far. Even the Ascension novel conveys how dangerous the council believed creating an artificial intelligence would be.

I just don't see why a body with so much power would leave such a threat untouched at such a vulnerable point. Their naval power would only be what they'd claimed from the Quarians and they'd not yet had time to manufacture the advanced weaponry that gave them the advantage they had in Shepard's run. They were fighting a divided and unprepared enemy that underestimated their capabilities. The Council would have no such issue, and vastly outgun them given that they'd have 11 dreadnaughts to every Quarian one.

There was a huge window to put out that fire before it spread, and by not going in, they endangered the entire galaxy. Unclear motives or not, failing to neutralize a threat when you have the opportunity to do so is foolish. There were countless scenarios playing through their heads when contemplating what might happen if an AI went rogue, and moving beyond the veil to leave us alone forever probably wasn't one of them.

Because then the Geth couldn't be the enemy during mass effect one. To be fair, the council does a lot of stupid things in mass effect, taking a hands off approach to the what they believed to be a "geth problem" is just one of about a dozen stupid council decisions that both happen in game and are referred to in the codex.

Perhaps they thought that the manpower required to "cleanse" the geth was too great an since they weren't advancing beyond the Perseus Veil, they weren't perceived as the biggest threat. Although, given the council's stance on AI in general that seems a bit inconsistent and I would've thought they would've moved quickly to neutralize the threat. Were they too busy with the Rachi Wars or the Krogan Rebellion at the time ?

Perhaps they thought that the manpower required to "cleanse" the geth was too great an since they weren't advancing beyond the Perseus Veil, they weren't perceived as the biggest threat. Although, given the council's stance on AI in general that seems a bit inconsistent and I would've thought they would've moved quickly to neutralize the threat. Were they too busy with the Rachi Wars or the Krogan Rebellion at the time ?

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No, because the Rachni wars ended before the Rebellion & by the time you play Shepard the Rebellion had ended about a thousand years before while the Morning war had happened like three hundred years ago. So the Rachni & Krogan wars were long over with by the time the Morning War happened. But maybe the effects of those wars were still being felt & they weren't strong enough to go to war with the Geth?

Couldn't remember the timeline, but that sounds about right. I mean that's possible that the Council just wanted to avoid another major war. Even during present day, the Council was going out of it's way to avoid conflict with the Terminus at least that how it looked to me. And we all know how that turned out.

Trying to destroy them, definitely. Even their transition to true AI was an accident that was equally the result of the Geth's self-improvements as the Quarians enabling them in the first place. Not like the Geth just woke up one morning and the Quarians made them intelligent. They did it themselves, naturally.

The memories inside the Geth Consensus indicate that many Geth were open to peace, and so were a lot of Quarians. The Quarians went straight for the "turn it off with bullets" method that was ultimately the worst decision in their history. Even worse than creating them in the first place.

Destroying them, at least, if it all really went down like how it was described in the geth consensus.

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I'm not a big fan of that mission, or how ME3 as a whole skewed Geth as innocent victims. It was a mistake to attack, but the geth went to nigh genocide until the Quarians couldn't fight back, The Quarians went from billions to 17 million over the war and exiled from their planet, surely all those Quarians they killed weren't all xenophobic soldiers.

From then on the Geth have done nothing but sit there and attacking organics, while the Quarians float in space and try to recover in peace. The Quarians messed up, but I don't like the way it's portrayed and how some people think it's one-sided.